Dallas' win over the Staples Center tenant was a warm-up gig for their Thursday night showing against a white-hot Lakers team.

There is a warm-up gig at The Plug in Sheffield on 15 July 2009.

Carter also performed at a secret warm-up gig on 17 November at the Southampton Joiners.

"I loved him because he was kind and strong," he tells me, shortly before taking the stage at a secret warm-up gig ahead of his first major London appearances this year.

The warm-up gig to the show, in a small nightclub, was dedicated to the memory of Nigel Preston, who had died a few weeks earlier at the age of 31.

Nash has just taken her new songs on the road, completing a series of small warm-up gigs.

Claire Bidwell (bass) and Mark Dyvig (drums) with a warm-up gig the previous night at The Thatched House in Stockport.

On 22 August, they played a warm-up gig at Subterranea, London, for the Reading Festival, their first festival gig.

On 24 June 2010, the band played a warm-up gig at Debut London to a small crowd.

The show was arranged as an unannounced warm-up gig before their debut at the Camden Palace on 13 January.